Earlier text: The Wise Men and the StarTHE LIGHT OF THE WORLD.
By Thaddeus L. Waters
Among the Jews, previous to the birth of the Messiah, there were a variety of opinions and sects. They imbibed many of the opinions of the philosophers, together with some of the superstitious notions of the Egyptians, Babylonians, and Persians, to whom they had been in bondage. Especially was this true in regard to the immortality of the soul and the heathen dogma of Hades. Says the historian Gibbon:— It is incumbent on us to adore the mysterious dispensations of Providence, when we discover that the doctrine of the immortality of the soul is omitted in the law of Moses; it is but darkly insinuated by the prophets; and during the long period which elapsed between the Egyptian and Babylonian servitudes, the hopes as well as the fears of the Jews appear to have been confined within the narrow compass of the present life. After Cyrus had permitted the exiled nation to return into the promised land, and after Ezra had restored the ancient records of their religion, two cultivated sects, the Sadducees and the Pharisees, insensibly arose at Jerusalem. The former, selected from the more opulent and distinguished ranks of society, were strictly attached to the literal sense of the Mosaic law; and they piously rejected the immortality of the soul as an opinion that received no countenance from the Divine Book, which they revered as the only rule of their faith. To the authority of Scripture, the Pharisees added that of tradition; and they accepted, under the name of traditions, several speculative tenets from the philosophy or religion of the Eastern nations. The doctrine of fate, or predestination, of spirits, and of a state of future rewards and punishments (the Greek, Hades) were in the number of these new articles of belief; and as the Pharisees, by the austerity of their manners, had drawn into their party the body of the Jewish people, the immortality of the soul became the prevailing sentiment of the synagogue under the reign of the Asmonean princes and pontiffs.—Decline and Fall, vol. I, ch. 15, par. 2. With this understanding of their belief in Hades as the place of departed souls, with all its fantastic imagery—the three-headed dog Cerberus at the gate; the river Lethe; the lake Avernus, with the ferryman Charon to ferry the souls across; the Elysian fields, or Abraham’s bosom, for the good, the impassable Lethe, and beyond it hell with its three Furies, the hair of whose heads was snakes, and who chased the wicked souls into the lurid flames—it is easy to understand the parable of Dives, the rich man, and Lazarus, the beggar (Luke 16:19-31), spoken against them by Jesus upon their own belief, without questioning whether that belief was right or wrong. Another sect was the Essenes. They taught— that religion consisted wholly in contemplation and silence. They practised the most rigorous abstinence; many of them lived in celibacy, and observed a variety of penitential exercises and mortifications borrowed from Egypt, where many of them dwelt. They viewed the law as an allegorical system of spiritual and mysterious truths, and renounced all regard to its letter in the explanation of it. They held to absolute predestination, and that only the soul would be punished in a future state. Such were the leading philosophical sects when Jesus Christ was born. Thus He found the world in respect to religious opinions; and as respects the worship of idols, a volume could do no more than give their names. Suffice it to say that in Athens alone 30,000 were worshiped; and lest there might be one they had never heard of, and he might happen to come to their city, and, finding neither statue, altar, nor temple dedicated to him, might in revenge destroy their city, they erected an altar and inscribed it—“To the unknown God.” Acts 17:23. At the first advent of Jesus, science had proved itself systematic folly; philosophy, falsely called moral, had exhibited its utter incompetency to illuminate the understanding, purify the heart, control the passions, curb the appetites, or restrain the vices of the world. A skepticism that left nothing certain, a voluptuousness that knew no restraint, a lasciviousness that recognized no law, a selfishness that proscribed every relation, an idolatry that deified every reptile, and a barbarity that brutalized every feeling, had generally overwhelmed the world, and had grouped those assimilated in vice under particular names characteristic of every species of crime. Canon Farrar says:— The epoch which witnessed the early growth of Christianity, was an epoch of which the horror and degradation have rarely been equaled, and perhaps never exceeded, in the annals of mankind. Were we to form our sole estimate of it from the lurid picture of its wickedness which St. Paul in more than one passage has painted with a few powerful strokes, we might suppose we were judging it from too lofty a standpoint. We might be accused of throwing too dark a shadow upon the crimes of paganism, when we set it as a foil to the luster of an ideal holiness. But even if St. Paul had never paused amid his sacred reasonings to affix his terrible brand upon the pride of heathenism, there would still have been abundant proofs of the abnormal wickedness which accompanied the decadence of ancient civilization. They are stamped upon its coinage, cut on its gems, painted upon its chamber walls, and sown broad-cast over the pages of its poets, satirists, and historians. “Out of thine own mouth will I judge thee, thou wicked servant.”—Early Days of Christianity, vol. I, p. 1. “I Am the Light of the World.”
Amidst the uncertainty, darkness, and vice that overspread the earth, Jesus Christ appeared and laid the foundation of hope, of true religion, and of a religious union and brotherhood, unknown, unheard of, and unexpected among men. The Jews were united by consanguinity and by agreement in a ponderous ritual. The Gentiles rallied under every opinion, and were grouped like filings of steel around a magnet under every possible shade of difference of thought concerning their mythology. When there burst upon the world a religion based upon our relations to God, systems of religion consisting of opinions and speculations upon matter and mind, upon virtue and vice, with natural or inherent immortality as the basis of them all, had been adapted, improved, reformed, and exploded, time after time. That there was always something superfluous, something defective and wrong, something that could be improved, was generally felt and acknowledged. What that something was the philosophers could not divine. Christ said, “I am the light of the world; he that followeth Me ‘shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.” John 8:12. Century after century had rolled by, and the only light of life known to heathenism was the perverted light of the immortality of the soul; now “the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.” John 1:5. And from that day to this has this light been shining, and still the words of the apostle are as true to-day as they were then. In the natural world there is starlight, moonlight, the morning twilight, and the splendor of the noonday sun. Precisely so in the moral and religious world. There was the starlight of patriarchal times, when life through Jesus Christ was dimly seen in the sacrificial lamb; the moonlight of the Jewish age, when the light of life reflected from heaven’s sanctuary through a ponderous ritual, cast its cold and lifeless rays upon a wicked world. For we are told, “For the law ‘having a shadow of good things to come, and not the very image of ‘the things, can never with those sacrifices which they offered year by ‘year continually make the comers thereunto perfect.” Heb. 10:1. There is the twilight of the Gospel—the Sun of Righteousness arising with healing in His rays—the absolute forgiveness of sins, the gift of the Holy Spirit, the peace that passeth understanding, and the brotherhood and fellowship of the saints of God. And there will be the splendor of the noonday, when every creature in heaven and in earth shall praise God, saying, “Blessing, and honor, and glory, and ‘power, be unto Him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb ‘forever and ever.” Rev. 5:13. “I Am the Light of the World.” “He that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in Him [this ‘the heathen did not and could not have]; he that believeth not God ‘hath made Him a liar; because he hath not believed in the witness ‘that God hath borne concerning His Son. And the witness is this, ‘that God gave unto us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. He ‘that hath the Son hath the life; he that hath not the Son of God hath ‘not the life.” 1 John 5:10-12, R.V. The Certainty of God’s Moral Government
It is a mistake to say that it is doubtful whether there is a God or not. It is not in the least doubtful, but the most certain thing in the world, nay, the foundation of all other certainty—the only solid, absolute objectivity—that there is a moral government of the world.—Fichte. Modest Heroes Who Bear Burdens
By Blennerhasset
How LITTLE the world knows about its modest heroes who bear burdens uncomplainingly, and show no envy toward those who are more fortunately situated from a worldly point of view.—Blennerhasset. A SEASON OF GIFTS.
By Editor
THIS is a season of gift-giving and receiving. Few indeed there are but that expect to receive something during Christmas-tide, and very many indeed expect to give. Most of these gifts will be given from impulse and affection. Many will give to discharge obligations. Some one has given to them; they must give in return, or—a half dozen things might be thought or said. Many give to others, hoping to receive more. Many give to loved ones because of fond love, finding joy in the giving and the pleasure of the receiver. Many give to those who are needy as well; but few indeed are they who give solely because of that. The motives above indicated, save the last, are largely selfish. They are in harmony with the pagan origin of the great December festival. Millions of dollars will be given this month by Christians, and much of it foolishly, for gifts which bring no joy to the possessor or good to the world. Fortunes will be spent in feasting and drinking, and the fruits will be gluttony, indigestion, sickness, remorse, depraved dispositions, licentiousness, and drunkenness. We wish to present before our readers, our brethren and sisters in Christ Jesus, a better plan. It will call for self-denial, but that was the very basis of Christ’s work for us, and it is the only true basis of all Christian character. It will mean radical change, but as long as it is for the better, make it. It may not be so joyous in the doing, but it will yield the peaceable, joyous fruit of righteousness. Let these thoughts dominate:— “The Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give His life a ransom for many.” Matt. 20:28. “For ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that, tho He was rich, yet for your sakes He became poor, that ye through His poverty might become rich.” 2 Cor. 8:9. Think of the poor and needy ones all around you, whose cheerless houses many times know not even the barest necessities of life. All these houses (we can not say homes) are Christ’s opportunities to every one of His children. It is their privilege to carry the sunshine of Christ into these places, and plead, and pray, and hope that He may be retained there. Think of the millions in heathen lands who are enslaved in superstition, idolatry, and the blackness of sin, who know not the Lord Jesus Christ. Think of the bondage of the millions of women in India. Think of the children dying through neglect and ignorance. If the needless gifts of Christendom were this year truly consecrated to this work, what a great wave of light and blessing would break over the cheerless, dark places of this world! O that the church of God could see the blessing in this opportunity! She would realize the truth of the Master’s words, “It is more blessed to give than to receive.” Seventh-day Adventists are calling for liberal gifts in this season of giving. Their Foreign Mission Board desires from among the 70,000 members one thousand additional missionaries and one hundred thousand dollars; but God asks more than this. He desires among these, 70,000 missionaries, and the consecration of their all to the cause of God. Surely, in view of the great demands from Christ our King, the Foreign Mission Board should not be disappointed. In view of what Christ has wrought for every soul, ought not this Christmas-tide to bring more blessing to the poor and needy than ever before? Love is measured by love’s giving. MAY WE KNOW THE DAY OF THE SABBATH?
Not long since we heard an esteemed Christian minister assert with much positiveness that he did not believe that any one could tell what the true seventh day was. The gentleman believed that God gave the Sabbath, but he thought that in the vicissitudes of change, the uncertainty of the records of barbarous ages, the various methods in vogue of reckoning time, etc., etc., no one could tell with certainty what day the seventh day was in God’s count of time. His positive statement awakened these reflections:— 1. God rested on the seventh day of that first septenary cycle. Gen. 2:2, 3. That made it His rest-day, a fact which could never be changed, unless creation should be blotted out, and gone over again. He blessed and sanctified that seventh day of the cycle. To sanctify, or set apart, involves a proclamation, a command. That blessing and sanctification, given in the beginning, has never been removed. God’s law—“Remember the Sabbath day ‘[the rest-day]’ to keep it holy; . . . the seventh day is the Sabbath [the rest] of the Lord thy God”—is perpetual; it has never been abolished; “it is ‘easier’ for heaven and earth to pass, than one tittle of ‘the law to fail.’” Luke 16:17; Matt. 5:17-20; Isa. 51:6, 7. Now, did God set apart an institution so clearly, with such elaborate care, command its observance so positively, and yet leave the identity of that institution so obscure that man had no means of ascertaining the truth? Would this be like God? Would not He who gave the day and issued the law, preserve its identity for all?—Surely His wisdom, justice, and love would demand this. 2. Again: We can not say that a certain portion of time is all that is required, and that we can adopt or substitute any day we wish. He gives no license to substitute human for divine. The priests who substituted the common fire for the sacred, died for the rash act. The substituting of a cart and oxen to carry the sacred ark instead of its being borne on the shoulders of men divinely appointed, resulted in the death of Uzzah. There are other instances which show that God will not accept substitutes for His own divinely-appointed institutions. When He has seemed to do this, He has been merciful despite the transgression, because of human ignorance and blindness. 3. The day was the seventh in a particular cycle ordained with respect to that one day alone, and from which every day was named. It was first day of, or to, the Sabbath; second day to the Sabbath, and so on to the Sabbath, the crowning day of the week. It is ever that particular day, the rest-day of God, the day He blessed and sanctified; it is the seventh day, not a seventh day, that is commanded. Surely, when God so emphasizes the day, why should not we? When He makes that one day a blessing to man, why should not man embrace the casket of blessings? 4. Did the world forget the day from the Creation to the Exodus?—It is not reasonable. Occasionally one person forgets the day of the week; very rarely a family does. But who ever heard of a community forgetting it? Who ever heard of a township, or a city, or a nation forgetting it? Many of these have put the Sabbath away, refusing to observe it, but God has ever preserved its witnesses. 5. But if during the period noted in the last paragraph the Sabbath had been lost to man, what of it? It was not lost to God. He who rested on the day, who blessed the day, who gave to man the day to be a blessing, did not lose the Sabbath. And when Israel was brought out of Egypt to serve the Lord, He marked for them each recurring Sabbath for forty years by the three-fold weekly miracle of the manna. Read the record in Exodus 16. Surely, when the Lord said through His servant, “To-morrow is the rest of the holy Sabbath unto the Lord,” He knew that the next day after that was His regularly recurring rest-day. And when some of the people went out to gather manna on “the seventh day,” the Lord said, “How long refuse ye to keep ‘My commandments and My laws? See, for that the ‘Lord’ hath given you the Sabbath. . . . So ‘the people rested on the seventh day.’” See verses 23-30. 6. No one contends that the day was lost during the Levitical age, from the Exodus to the Crucifixion. It was observed by Jews all the way from Babylon on the east to Egypt on the west. Surely, also, our blessed Redeemer, Teacher, and Example, who is Lord of the Sabbath, knew the day. He observed it, taught upon it, healed upon it, and made it a blessing, as God designed it should be. The Sabbath was then known, and it came the day previous to the first day of the week. Matt. 28:1; Mark 16:1, 2; Luke 23:56; 24:1. Nineteen centuries ago the Sabbath was known as the seventh day of the week, the day just before “the first day of the week.” 7. Since then there is no question as to the day among scholars. The first day of the week now, synchronizes with the first day then. Eclipses dating back to B. C. 500 show the reckoning to have been correct. All scholars and historians are agreed as to the day. All religions of note are agreed as to the day. Christians generally observe the first day of the week for the usually alleged reason that Christ rose on that day. The Jews, scattered in every country and clime, have preserved the knowledge of the seventh day. Christians who have kept the seventh day from the early centuries of the era to the present are in evidence. Among these may be numbered the Abyssinians, who are observers of the seventh day to the present. The names of the days of the week among over a hundred dialects and languages are in harmony in declaring the seventh day the Sabbath. And God in His wisdom and goodness is sending a message to all the world to restore to them the Sabbath of the Lord our God, full of rest and blessing to all the race who accept it joyfully, gladly. Isaiah 56, 58; Rev. 14:6-14. The same gentleman referred to in the beginning of this article said that rather than have division, he would prefer that the whole world should keep Saturday. But it is not Sunday-keeping or Saturday-keeping that God wants. It is Sabbath-keeping, knowing the rest of peace which Jesus gives, knowing the power of the endless life, knowing the creative, regenerating power of God, knowing the sacredness and holiness of God’s institutions and commandments; and knowing all these and more, and gladly yielding to do His whole will, to keep not Saturday, but Sabbath. “God is not the author of confusion,” that which ever results in departing from God’s commandments. We wish no soul to be compelled to keep the Sabbath; in fact, he can not be. “God is ‘love,’ and love can not be served by fear or force, but only by voluntary love. We know the commandment; we know the day. The Lord says, ‘If ye love Me, keep My commandments.’ Better to serve Him alone forever, than ‘to follow a multitude to sin.’” THIS is one of the great petitions of the prayer Jesus taught His disciples. Supplementary to it are the words following: “Thy will be done ‘in earth, as it is in heaven.” For Christ’s kingdom will come only when and where God’s will is done. In His kingdom, the prophet tells us, His “people ‘also shall be all righteous; they shall inherit the ‘land forever.” Isa. 60:21. When His kingdom comes, then “the kingdom and dominion, and the ‘greatness of the kingdom under the whole heaven, ‘shall be given to the people of the saints [holy ‘ones] of the Most High, whose kingdom is an ‘everlasting kingdom, and all dominions shall serve ‘and obey Him.” Dan. 7:27. Then “the meek ‘shall inherit the earth; and shall delight themselves ‘in the abundance of peace.” Ps. 37:11. Where abundance of peace dwells, where the meek inherit, where the saints reign, there God’s will is done. This is the ultimate of the petition, “Thy kingdom ‘come.” But this is not the primary petition. No one will reign in Christ’s kingdom, no one will inherit that kingdom, who is not doing the will of God; and only those will do God’s will whose hearts have been wholly yielded to Him. Christ’s kingdom must be established in the heart before the soul can enter the kingdom. His Spirit must rule there. His life must be the animus. His character must be the standard. His law must be the rule of government, dominating all other laws and traditions. Therefore the great petition of the prayer Jesus taught,—“Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in ‘earth, as it is in heaven,”—is primarily personal, and when truly prayed applies, first of all, to the heart and life of him who prays. If it is not thus prayed, it is never truly prayed. We never truly ask for God’s kingdom to come unless we first ask it to come into the heart and life. So pray it, then, and Jesus will bring in His reign of peace. So continue to pray till every imagination of the heart is made subject to Him forever. What Does It Mean to You?
The day called “Christmas” does not come to us from Christ, altho the name does. Yet even that is unscriptural and pagan. It is composed of two words “Christ” and “mass,” the sacrifice of Christ. But when Christ died, He died once for all. The celebration of December 25 comes to us directly from the old pagan feast, the Saturnalia, observed in honor of Saturn, or Bacchus, or Tammuz, all different names for the same characteristics deified. The feast goes back to Babylon of old, to Queen Semiramis, a woman most vile. “In Babylon, where it originated, and afterward in all the pagan nations, the great drunken festival, called in Rome Saturnalia, was celebrated in commemoration of the birth of Tammuz (Bacchus) in the month of Thebeth, answering to our December. In Rome the whole month, and often a part of January, was considered as belonging to the Saturnalia, tho the 25th of December was specially devoted to the birthday celebration.” (See “Pagan Counterfeits in the Christian Church,” chapter IV.) The festival was one of unbridled drunkenness and licentiousness, the giving of gifts, dancing and reveling, in honor of the false messiah, Tammuz. The fir tree and ivy garlands and wreaths were used, symbols of the old sun-worship. The apostate church thought it would be a master-stroke to turn the power and influence of that festival into the Christian church, so the falsehood was promulgated that Christ was born on the 25th of December, and the old pagan festival was baptized and called Christian, to the great dishonor of God and His church. And all the excesses of eating and drinking, the licentiousness and revelry, the giving of presents to friends, now connected with Christmas, are of purely pagan origin, and leave the world worse than they find it. Christ was not born on that day. He began His ministry in the autumn at the age of thirty years. Luke 3:23. Six months from this time He attended a Passover, attending four during His ministry, at the last of which He was crucified in A. D. 31, at the age of about thirty-three years and six months. This would bring His birth six months from the last of March or first of April, or in our September or October. “But is it not good to celebrate the birth of ‘Christ?’ one asks. Certainly. “Is it not well to ‘have a day set apart for that purpose?’—No, not unless God so directed; and He has never so done. The birth of Jesus was not for a day, but for all time. “The Word was made flesh” that men might hope and rejoice in its power every day, for all time. When we ourselves take a day to celebrate an event that God has given for all time, we lose sight of the real significance of the great fact, and worship an idol. We should be grateful for the gift of “the Holy child Jesus.” It should soften and enlarge with gratitude every heart which contemplates God’s wondrous love, and Christ’s eternal sacrifice. But this should not lead us to give useless gifts, or gifts to those not in need. Let our gratitude to God for the gift of His Son constrain us to help the poor and the needy, the sick and the destitute, the ignorant and lost who do not know God’s wondrous love. Let the season this year be used in this way. Teach children the real Christ lesson to deny themselves for the sake of others. They will in thus doing be truly happier and less envious. AS MIGHT HAVE BEEN EXPECTED.
By G.
A CLASS of people who claim to be looking for the Lord to come have set several definite times for His advent during the last fifty years, but their predictions have so often failed that they have become utterly confused. Now some of them have changed their base, and are looking for new landmarks. The Lord has given us signs by which we may know when His coming is “near, even at the doors.” After the “tribulation” of the church during the time now known as the Dark Ages, which virtually ended about 1776, when an edict granting religious toleration was issued in Austria, there were to be signs in the sun, moon, and stars, which the Lord said would indicate the nearness of His second advent. See Matthew 24. According to this word there did occur, in 1780, that remarkable phenomenon known as the Dark Day, followed by an equally phenomenal darkening of the moon. These “signs” never have been accounted for by scientists, and can be understood only by accepting the Word of the Lord. Again, in 1833, there was the remarkable meteoric shower that exceeded in brilliancy and extent anything of the kind on record either before or since. Now some of the definite-time setters have embraced another theory, and, as a matter of course, it is based on an idea that is altogether visionary. This theory is that Christ referred to the tribulation of the Jews, and that, when they shall have been restored to their old land, and Jerusalem shall have been established as of old, then these signs will be given in token of the Lord’s coming. We are told that a good many have adopted this theory, and others are hesitating, tho somewhat inclined to accept it. But not to appear as yielding their former belief, the undecided ones suggest the possibility of a double application of the Saviour’s prophecy; that the signs were given to the church, as already recorded, and will be repeated when the Jewish tribulation comes to an end in their restoration to favor. The trouble with this new theory is, that it is predicated on a false premise. There are no more promises for the natural seed. They, as a nation, have had their day; whatever advantage a Jew may now have under the Gospel, he can obtain just like any other individual,—by faith in Jesus Christ as a personal Saviour. There are prophecies that have double application, for the reason that literal Israel failed to appreciate their privileges, failed to believe the prophets, failed to take God at His Word, and therefore failed to fulfil the conditions. But the promises of God do not fail; what the natural seed failed to receive because of their lack of faith, will be made good to the spiritual seed through Christ. “All the promises of God in Him are yea, and in Him Amen, unto the glory of God.” When the messengers of heaven made known through Daniel the great prophetic period of two thousand and three hundred days, it was said that seventy weeks were determined upon the people of Israel. This time, a year for a day, ended in A. D. 34, for in the midst of the seventieth week Messiah was to be cut off. The official rejection of Christ by the Jews ended their special prerogative as a people; but for about three and a half years the apostles gave special attention to preaching the Gospel to the Jews, and this ended their seventy weeks. Zedekiah was their last king. Through the prophet Ezekiel the Lord said: “Remove the diadem, and take off the crown; this shall not be the same; exalt him that is low, and abase him that is high. I will overturn, overturn, overturn it; and it shall be no more, until He come whose right it is; and I will give it Him.” Eze. 21:26, 27. Christ is the One who was exalted because He humbled Himself. Phil. 2:5-9. He will take the kingdom at His coming. “When the Son of man shall come in His glory, and all the holy angels with Him, then shall He sit upon the throne of His glory.” Matt. 25:31. In the meantime there is no special prerogative to any people but to those who obey the Gospel; there are no racial preferences; the grace of God is to all people on equal terms. Col. 3:11. The Jews as a people have had their day. As a people they were types of the spiritual seed, over whom Christ will reign on “the throne of His father David; and He shall reign over the house of Jacob forever; and of His kingdom there shall be no end.” See Luke 1:30-33. Now for men to be putting off the Lord’s coming until after the “tribulation” of the natural Jews has passed, which logically must mean their restoration as a favored people, is simply postponing the glorious event to a time that never will come. The enemy of souls is prolific of schemes for deluding people with regard to the second advent of Christ, and he is especially active just now, as that event is now near at hand; and he could hardly conceive of a worse delusion than to have people basing the time on an imaginary event which, in the light of God’s Word, never can occur. When men have insisted, after repeated failures, on setting definite time for the Messiah’s coming, they are naturally confused, and are easily led to a “leap in the dark” that will carry their expectations away beyond the time when they ought to be looking for their Lord’s return. Thus in an hour when they think not, the Lord will come. Confusion of doctrine is one of Satan’s many deceptive devices. But when people professing to look for the Lord reject the very light (“the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus”) that would guide them in a stable course, what should be expected but to find them floundering in the mire of speculation? THE RIGHTEOUSNESS THAT EXALTS.
By G.
The Word of the Lord says that “righteousness exalteth a nation,” and this expression has been made a kind of catch-phrase by the National Reformers. It is made a plea for every phase of so-called “civic righteousness” which the National Reform idea may desire to have established by human law. While the Scriptures of truth teach that “righteousness exalteth a nation,” they also teach that all the commandments of God are righteousness. Ps. 119:172. Therefore when “civic righteousness” demands laws that contravene the law of God, it is quite certain that the Lord does not recognize it; and all the exaltation that the nation will get out of that kind of righteousness will be self-exaltation. The Scriptures further teach that “he that exalteth himself shall be abased,” and this is just as true of a nation as of an individual. The exaltation that is referred to in the Scriptures is exaltation in the mind and in the purpose of God, and not merely in the eyes of the world. The history of the world shows that at the very time when nations have appeared to be on the highest pinnacle of favor, as viewed from a human standpoint, then the providence of God began to let them down. The righteousness that exalts a nation is not the mere profession of righteousness by civil ordinances, not the perfunctory proclamation of righteousness through official representation; but it is the righteousness of faith in Jesus Christ manifested in the private lives of the people as individuals. It is not the utterance of official documents, but the expression of individual life, “which after God is created ‘in righteousness and true holiness.” No public declaration, either in Constitution or law, or by convention assembled, however vast, can create a new heart in a single individual. That was tried when the children of Israel declared at Sinai, “All that the Lord hath spoken we will do,” and the effort was a miserable failure. It has been tried many times since by national profession of Christianity, but the unchristian attitude of the nations toward one another, with an utter disregard of the Golden Rule in all diplomatic and trade relations, is evidence of universal failure. The Word of God recognizes only the righteousness of Christ as real righteousness; all other righteousness is “filthy rags.” Now the righteousness of Christ can be obtained only by imputation, through faith. “Abraham believed God, and it ‘was imputed unto him for righteousness.” Belief is an individual matter, therefore the imputing of righteousness can only be to individuals. Righteousness is a spiritual attainment; that imaginary condition which is popularly called “civic righteousness” is only an attempt at enforced righteousness. It is only when the people are individually righteous, through faith in Jesus Christ, that righteousness will exalt the nation in the estimation of the universal Judge. G. “The National Reform Association stands for the ‘defense of our imperiled sabbath,’ says that body’s organ. An ‘imperiled sabbath’ must have a very insecure foundation. It can not be based on any authority of God, else nothing could imperil it. And that is just the trouble with the ‘imperiled sabbath.’ It was established by the authority of man, on the first day of the week, as a rival of the Sabbath of the Lord. Of course it is ‘imperiled;’ for the works of man will all come to naught, ‘but the word of the Lord endureth forever.’” 1202. Adonijah's Request.
In what did the offense consist when Adonijah made request in 1 Kings 2:13-25? It was a shrewd plot to obtain the kingdom. Having the king's concubine, he could lay fairly good claim among the fickle people to the kingdom. See 1 Kings 1:5-9.